Alabama Republicans vote to determine political future of Jeff Sessions, settling a primary contest for the Senate seat that was upended by President Trump's backing of former Auburn University football coach Tommy Tuberville.
Political strategists say that Tuberville's outsider status and his time as head football coach at Auburn could help carry him to a win on Tuesday.
"The outsider is now who has the upper hand in every race these days," said David Mowery, a political strategist based in Montgomery who has worked for both Republicans and Democrats."It's hard to turn that into a negative in 2020 Republican primaries." Tuberville is also remembered"fondly from a time when Auburn football was successful," said David Hughes, a political science professor at Auburn University at Montgomery,"and people in the South really do take SEC football seriously."
Sessions and Tuberville entered the runoff after neither won a majority in the March 3 primary, with Tuberville leading with 33.4 percent of the vote and Sessions coming in second at 31.6 percent. The runoff was initially scheduled for March 31 but was delayed due to the coronavirus pandemic, prolonging the race by more than three months.
Grace Newcombe, a spokesperson for the Alabama secretary of state, said that they had seen a"significant increase in absentee ballots for a runoff election" due to the coronavirus pandemic but they did not expect a delay in reporting the results Tuesday.
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